Friday, April 19, 2013

After Boston attack: US Muslims reliving post 9-11 experience

Muslims in the US are living in fear, praying that those responsible for the bombings in Boston will be apprehended and shown to be non-Muslim. Over the last few days, reports of harassment of Arabs and Muslims have been coming up throughout the US, especially at places of employment and in schools.

Apprehensions were raised among Arabs and Muslims after the New York Post published the photos of two Muslim teens, who the paper's headlines claimed, were wanted by authorities for questioning in relation to the Boston bombings.

A short time after the attack, the main headline on the newspaper’s site had stated that at least 12 people had been killed and that the main suspect was a Saudi who had been arrested by Boston Police. Law enforcement quickly denied the reports, saying they had not arrested a Saudi national, or anyone else.

The link above is to a Y-Net article, but the Boston Globe is reporting that two Chechen immigrants, brothers, are suspects for the attack in Boston.

I know that some people are crowing that these people are Muslim.

Speaking for myself, I have no intention of using this space to slander Muslims because of this.

The Jewish people in the Middle East have lived under Islamic supremacy for thirteen of the last fourteen centuries. That's an historical fact, but it does not mean that we need to stir the pot and start screaming our heads off.

I still want to know more about what was behind this and why they did it - if they did it. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was apparently shot dead by the cops, but until such a time as his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, starts screaming "Alahu Akbar!" and "Death to America!" I am emphatically NOT going to go under the assumption that this was a Jihadi attack.

It might very well have been, but I do not know that to be the case and the fact of the matter remains that the Muslim population in the United States is a small minority and if they have fears of persecution, those fears should be considered and not denigrated.

Nonetheless, I have considerable faith in the American public and I do not believe for one second that Americans will launch into to some anti-Muslim frenzy. We didn't after 9-11 and we're not going to do so now.